


Take Me to Church

by MaevesChild



Series: Through the Eluvian [7]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Rivalmance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 04:12:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4165350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaevesChild/pseuds/MaevesChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Songfic inspired by and lyrics by Andrew Hozier</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me to Church

_My lover's got humour_  
_She's the giggle at a funeral_  
_Knows everybody's disapproval_  
_I should've worshipped her sooner_

 

That lilt to her voice, it was like delicate, perfect fingers carding through his hair, dancing over his scalp.  Anders struggled to maintain his composure whenever he heard Hawke's voice, even when she was using it to make the Knight-Captain blush.  The endless parade of dead-eyed Tranquil shuffled past them.  

He still felt her voice on his skin. 

He thought of Karl, of feeling his lover's blood spill over his fingers, eyes cold and dead long before the life left them.  The Tranquil horrified him.  Even so, it wasn't enough to stop his arousal at Hawke's musical voice, the sleek curve of her neck, the haphazard fall of her dark hair over startlingly blue eyes.  

Her mouth was a constant offense, even when it was a perfect red bow in the middle of her face.  She laughed at his pain.  She toyed with his emotions.  Hawke teased Anders mercilessly; she tore apart what he believed in.

He needed mages to be free.  She thought magic was dangerous.  She didn't fight for them, not even when they took her sister to the Gallows.  She flirted with Knight-Captain Cullen with her sister trapped in his fucking prison surrounded by swords thirsty for her blood.

Hawke was everything he didn't want or need in his life.  

Three years.  Anders hated her.  He wanted her.  Soon, he wasn't going to be able to resist.

 

_If the Heavens ever did speak_  
_She's the last true mouthpiece_  
_Every Sunday's getting more bleak_  
_A fresh poison each week_

 

"I swear, I don't know whether to kiss you or kill you."  His voice shook.  It betrayed him too.  "You're everything I hate."

Hawke's face infuriated him.  Her eyes were coy.  One eyebrow cocked.  That tiny smile humored him, tempted him when her mouth said horrible things about mages and dangerous magic and still, there was a deep impossible ache in his chest where his heart was supposed to be.

"This will only end in ruin."  He believed every word.  She only believed in swords, in sex.  

Anders kissed her.  He couldn't stop himself.  He kissed her with three years of pent up desire, felt her kiss spread fire through every inch of his body.  He wanted her more than he wanted to be free, enough that the spirit in his head went silent beneath its fury.

She made him forget everything but desire.

"I'll break your heart."  He would try; he wanted to break her, to make her see.

"You keep saying that, but it keeps not happening."  Hawke's eyes begged him to hurt her, to tear her apart, to slam them so hard together he couldn't tell where he ended and she began.  His heart beat too fast, his breath too hard.  His head spun.  

Hawke was like drinking hemlock.  Wanting her was killing him.  He had to have her.

"If your door is open tonight, I'll come to you.  If not, I'll know you took my warning at last."

 

_'We were born sick,' you heard them say it_  
_My church offers no absolutes_  
_She tells me 'worship in the bedroom'_  
_The only heaven I'll be sent to_  
_Is when I'm alone with you_  
_I was born sick, but I love it_  
_Command me to be well_  
_Amen. Amen. Amen_

 

The fire burned hot in the fireplace.  Her room, her entire estate was opulent, over warm, too soft.  It cloyed at Anders like too many sweet pastries he knew would make him sick after all those years of deprivation.

He didn't care.  Couldn't stop himself.

"You didn't come here to talk."  She was so matter of fact about it.  She didn't care what he believed.  She just wanted to fuck him, to take him like she had the elf before him.

She broke him, discarded him.

Anders didn't care.  He loved her and hated himself for it.

"No mage I know has ever dared fall in love," he whispered, fingers tangling in her sleek hair and his palm rough against the perfect softness of her perfect, hateful face. Maker, he needed her like he needed his blood in his veins.  "This is the one rule I will most cherish breaking."

His kissed her gently this time, kissed her with his chest cracked open and his heart bared to her claws.  She took his hand and wrapped her fist around his heart and lead him to her bed.

 

  _If I'm a pagan of the good times_  
_My lover's the sunlight_  
_To keep the Goddess on my side_  
_She demands a sacrifice_

 

When she took him inside her, he thought he might die.  He wished he would.  Justice roared in his head, buried in the back of his skull held in check by the enormity of his body's desire.  He would never be the same again.  It felt like his soul, not just his cock was inside of her, part of her.  Somehow, if he could reach her, if she could only see. She had to know how he felt, how his heart broke every time a child was dragged away like a criminal, how it killed him inside every time a mage was severed from the Fade.

She would see.  She had to.

He came, shuddering and spent and she rode out his orgasm, her fingers between them, trying to finish what he started.

So many things Anders started and failed.  So many things he never finished.  He failed as a Circle mage, a Warden, a friend, a lover.  This time, he'd try harder.

He'd finish it.  

He pulled out of her, even as his own body protested and he slid down, burying his face between her legs, praying.  He would finish this, and he would finish what he started from now on.

Anders made Hawke scream his name.  For that one moment he was a man, not just some mage she had under her thumb, some sick broken stray dog she brought home.  

He wanted her to love him as desperately as he loved her.  He made her come.  He told her he loved her.

"Don't ever leave."  Her voice was pleading, broken.  Her perfect blue eyes glimmered at him in the firelight.

He'd finish it. 

  
_To drain the whole sea_  
_Get something shiny_  
_Something meaty for the main course_  
_That's a fine looking high horse_  
_What you got in the stable?_  
_We've a lot of starving faithful_  
_That looks tasty_  
_That looks plenty_  
_This is hungry work_

 

He lied to her.  He lied hard enough that it felt like glass in his mouth but there was no other way.  She wouldn't help him if she knew what he was planning.  She'd never stand for it.

So he lied with words he knew she longed to hear.  "You've been right all along."  

Hawke's face lit up.

"What I did with Justice was unnatural."  It was a lie.  He never regretted it, even as it was tearing him up.  He could no longer tell Justice from Vengeance from Anders but it didn't matter.  He couldn't stand being a sacrifice for the Grey Wardens, but he'd die for his fellow mages.  Someone would have to.  

"It should never have happened."  It should have happened sooner; it shouldn't have needed to.

"Is there some way to reverse it?" Hawke was sincere.  She loved the pretty blonde shell he wore.  She loved his stubble rubbing her skin raw, she loved how he could coax whimpers and orgasms from her.  She thought she loved him but she had no idea who and what he actually was.

"I found a potion that can separate Justice and me, without killing either," he said. There was no metaphor here.  It was just a lie.  Vengeance bristled in delight.

"Is it dangerous?" She was still trying to protect him, even if it was only the him he wore as a mask.  He loved her trying to love him, even the dark parts where he was really a monster.

"There's always danger with magic, but I think this is worth the cost."

It would cost him everything in the end; Anders could feel it.  Justice would be served and Vengeance would be sated and blood would be spilled.

He lied but told the truth that he loved her.  He was doing this for her, even if she didn't know it.

 

_No masters or kings when the ritual begins_  
_There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin_  
_In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene_  
_Only then I am human_  
_Only then I am clean_

 

At the last moment, she turned away and refused to help him.  

He understood and in a way he was glad for it, even as it broke his heart.  Anders hoped with some small child part of himself that she loved him enough to do what he asked without question.  But he was wrong.

This was her beloved Chantry; it was the Maker's name she called out more often than his when he pleasured her.  He still couldn't stop thinking about it, even now when his heart was shattered and she walked away, refusing him.

She didn't know it was over.  He did.

"You can't say you love me and not love what I stand for. There's nothing else left inside me."  He regretted saying it, but it was the truth.

"That's not fair.  I won't be blackmailed into aiding some mad scheme.  You're on your own."

Life wasn't fair. Nothing was fair. Loving Hawke had never been fair.  He loved her still, even as she turned away.

"I've always been on my own," he said to her retreating back.  "For a time, I just forgot."  He had no more tears left to cry.  It was almost over.

 

_Take me to church_  
_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_  
_I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife_  
_Offer me that deathless death_  
_Good God, let me give you my life_

 

"There can be no half measures."  Anders heard the echo of Justice in his voice.  He heard almost nothing that was still himself. His eyes burned with blue fire.

"Anders."  Hawke's words cut into him deep.  That tiny waver of emotion, that remnant of how dearly he let himself love her, how she let herself love him despite everything telling them both it was wrong.  "What have you done?"

"There can be no turning back."

The Chantry lit up like a torch, light streaking across the sky, bricks and stones and bodies flung asunder into the night.  A sacrifice.  They would be free if they all had to die for it.

"There can be no peace."

The war began long ago in his heart, his soul, but now he'd brought it to the world.  He wouldn't be remembered fondly, he knew, but perhaps a little tiny piece of Hawke would remember how he loved her.  Maybe there was one shard of good in the world because he did.

It couldn't have all been a mistake. Please, Maker, let it not have been all a mistake.

"The world needs to see this so we can all stop pretending the Circle is a solution. If I pay for that with my life, then I pay."

"I loved you."  Her voice was a crack of fire, a flame bursting to life on a pyre.  "I loved you and you betrayed me."

"I know."  A mistake.  All a giant mistake.

"Someone has to pay for this." 

"For what it's worth," he said, voice cracking like shattered glass.  "I'm glad its you."

He heard her intake of breath, half a sob, half in anger.  He didn't dare turn and look at her face.  He'd lose his nerve and beg for his life.  She might lose her nerve and force him to live.  Anders, Justice, Vengeance; they were too broken.  They'd done what they'd been created to do and there was nothing left.

Please, Andraste, let this all have been worth it.  Please, let me be free.  

The knife slid between his ribs into his heart. Hawke's breath was on his ear, his neck, her arm around his shoulders as she drove the knife home.

"I love you," she whispered and he wanted to tell her, but his breath was gone, his heart struggling it's last, but still one last beat; one, two heartbeats all for Hawke.

He'd done what he could for the mages, this last moment was for her.  He fought harder for this than for anything before.

"I l-"

But he failed.  Blood gurgled from between his lips instead of words.  His last mistake, his last failure.  

Love died in his mouth. 

 

_Amen. Amen. Amen._

**Author's Note:**

> This idea also inspired a fan video that you can watch [here](https://youtu.be/Csip2C_FwN4).


End file.
